CHAP. XXX.
Yet one Royal Medicine of Vulgar Gold.
Make one Ounce of Gold more or less, irreducible by the benefit of Salts. Then to such irreducible or unmeltable Gold, add as much by weight of the fixed Salt of the Eagles Feathers burnt. Put these into a firmly coated Glass, and place the Glass in an Earthen Pan full of Sand; which Pan set in the Fire that it may be red hot. But after it hath stood in such a Degree of heat, for four or five hours, let it cool. Then take your fixed Sol out of the Glass, and it will be like white Chalk. This white Sol taken out of the Glass put into a good Crucible, upon which lute another, and then set it in a Wind Furnace, where having stood four or five hours, without any extream heat, let it cool. Then your Gold will be transmuted into a Tincture intensly red. Grind this red Salt to a most subtil Powder, and pour on Spirit of Wine to extract his Tincture. The tinged Spirit pour off, and pour on other, that it may also extract. Abstract the Spirit of Wine from the Tincture, and in the bottom a red Saline Liquor will remain, which is to be accounted a true Aurum Potabile: because it is not possible by any way whatsoever to extract any Gold from thence. This Operation begun, I once absolved without Errour; but many times afterward trying my Work, did not succeed so prosperously as at the first time. Yet I rather ascribe the Errour to my self, than to Art, plainly judging, that no other way more swift, more easie or more preparable, can be obtained a most readily profitable Tincture for diseased, humane and metallick Bodies. Yet I add this. If thou sufferest the common and now ductile Sol to be and remain Gold; and sparing labour and charge for making it irreducible, do onely make choice of such Stones for your Operation, such as without Charges you may get, and by nature partake of irreducible Gold. Then indeed you may much more easily find what you intend. For whatsoever Tinctures of a golden Disposition are incited in those Stones, they notwithstanding in this operation lose it, altogether wax white, and at length totally red again. Which being beheld by me, I never saw in all my Life a more wonderfull Sight. Hence Philosophers have always said: Whosoever can so destroy vulgar Sol, as it can never be again reduced into Sol, he hath attained to a very great Mystery. Also they further say: Whosoever knows not how to make our Sol (which is vulgar Sol rendred irreducible, or such as hath not yet felt the force of Fire, and in Stones is by Nature irreducible) white, he also cannot make it red. But now that is done this way. Therefore you need not doubt that besides medicinal Remedies, some other Eminent Works may thence be made. Which I leave more deeply to be searched into by those, who are yet strong and able to endure labour. As for my own part, I esteem the Pleasures and Riches of this World to be worse than nothing; and seek onely Incorruptibles, which can neither be stolen by Thieves, nor gnawn by Moths and other Vermine, nor be destroyed by any force of the Elements.
An Admonition.
In this little Book, candid Reader, I have treated of many rare Arcanums, or Secrets not vulgar; and that very briefly. All I here write, I write from certain Experience, as to Medicine: far be it, that I should profess my self a Master in the Melioration of Metals, I had rather say with Socrates, This one thing I know, viz. that I know nothing. Indeed had I been a younger Man, I should scarcely have forborn to exercise my self in such an Operation; but my great Age having rendred me unfit for all Labours, and unable to do any thing, I may easily be excused, for I am as it were compelled to abstain from so great a Work.
Here in this Book I have treated of divers secret Fires, yet not of all to me known, but of many of them: touching the best of them all (if GOD permit) the seventh Part of my Spagyrical Pharmacopœa shall treat. The wonderfull Vertues of which secret Fires is so far beyond belief, as they exceed all the Fires in this Enchyridion commemorated.
Quantum Lenta solent inter Viburna Cupressi.
I am amazed, as often as I call to mind, how immensly vertuous such fiery truly Stygian Spirits are, which are endued with a faculty of mortifying all Metals (although they be Bodies of greatest strength) and of carrying with them their immortal Souls, wheresoever they can. For they are endued with so great power, as nothing is able to defend it self from them. Yet besides these there are also other horrid Spirits made by Art, which do not onely after Mortification take from metallick Bodies their Soul; but also are endued with so great power, as they take away the Body with the Soul. Spirits of this kind are not usefull for our necessities, but those Spirits which do onely mortifie the Body, and draw forth from it its Soul, leaving the gross Body. If these Bodies were as conducive to us as Spirits, there would be no need to extract from them their most pure Spirits or Souls, to prepare our Medicine of them. Wherefore we, not without good reason, by the help of Artificial Distillation) extract the most clean Souls of Metals from their rude Bodies. For, by the benefit of Distillation, all Bodies of Vegetables, Animals and Minerals, are purified and subtilized. Which clean and subtil Spirits (when they are again reduced into fixed Bodies) must needs be better Bodies than all other vulgar Bodies, which never yet were Spirits. Therefore, the more fixed those Bodies are rendred, and the more those Spirits are subtilized, the more pure and further powerfull Tinctures will be obtained from them. The like we understand by Elementary Spirits. These Spirits, by their proper Virtue, can so far extend themselves, as to become wholly invisible, and (if I may so speak) altogether pervisible: on the contrary, they can again concentrate themselves, and constringe themselves into a very narrow compass, and in such-wise assume visible Bodies, palpable and hard, as they please themselves. Although such Objects, in the Judgment of the Eyes, are accounted Bodies, yet in very deed they are not true Bodies, but are onely concentrated Spirits, which enjoy a perpetual power of extending themselves again into latitude, and of leaving their corporeal Form and Shape, and re-assuming their Spiritual Figure. But it is impossible that these extended Spirits should possess so great power, as they had before Extension. For Spirits extended are no other than Air and Wind. On the contrary, concentrated Spirits have incredible Fortitude, penetrate more swiftly, and are Bodies of very great potency. A common Body cannot penetrate into another, without hurt to it self; nor in that extend it self, because of its gross and hard Mass. Yet such a Body, as is made of a certain Spirit, can penetrate other Bodies, and amend the same, without destruction of their Form and Species. As for Example: If any one turns a fixed Metal into a subtile Spirit, and this Spirit again reduceth into a fixed Body; this Body will not be a common, compact, gross or mortified Body, like all other Metallick Bodies; but is a Body spiritual, living, penetrating and vivifying mortified Bodies; or is (as I may call it) a Corporeal Spirit, which can extend it self in Amplitude, and shew its potency an hundred or a thousand ways; according as all true Philosophers ascribe to their Universal Medicine or Tincture, that it, in a very small quantity, is able to tinge or meliorate a great quantity of the more vile Bodies into Bodies most noble. Which admirable Correction is not as yet known to me; yet I certainly believe and judge, that such a Transmutation, or famous Emendation of Metals may be made, by the benefit of concentrated and fixed noble Metallick Spirits. Whosoever hath Time and Place convenient to set about this Work, may try what is possible to be performed by the help of Art. Convert fixed Bodies into subtile Spirits, and reduce volatile Spirits into fixed Bodies, then shall you obtain whatsoever you can desire or wish for.
Indeed I have Reasons enough to restrain my Quill from a farther promulgation of such high Matters; yet since I have proceeded farther in this discovery, than any Man before me ever did; what hinders but that I may to the Horse-man, to whom I have given a Nisæan [or excellent] Horse, give the Bridle also? Therefore it pleaseth me to reveal yet one kind of Spirits, which very lovingly receive the Souls of Metals (after their Bodies are mortified) and carry them up into the Philosophick Heaven, that is, into the Alembick. Which good Spirits are not horrible and cruel as the former, but sweet and amicable. Indeed, such good Spirits do all willingly associate themselves with the Souls of all Metals promiscuously, but onely with such most pure Souls, as are in Sol and Luna. But if they be compelled to be concerned in the Mortification of fœtid gross Metals, as Mars and Venus, or of venomous, and as yet immature and volatile Metals, as Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury, and to receive the out-passing Souls of them; they refuse not this office, yet from such fœtid Souls they contract a stink to themselves, and therefore can scarcely afterward be Medicinal. Wherefore, it is better not to use these good and pure Spirits, unless for receiving the Souls of clean Metals; for then they remain good, and cannot be administred in Medicine without admiration: and, on the contrary, the Souls of venomous Metals may be so much the more happily used for the Emendation of Metals.
Now, as touching these good Spirits, know, they are nothing else but a pure Spirit of Wine, when it is associated with Sol and Luna, at that very time, wherein their fixed Bodies are invaded and mortified by their Enemies, and their pure Souls set at liberty; then they are received and carried upwards by these pure Spirits; and a Royal Medicine is obtained, which every Man may administer according to his understanding. There are also many other Spirits which attend Metals destroyed and mortified, that they may take to themselves their pure Souls and carry them away. But of these enough at this time. Ere long (GOD willing) I shall speak more at large of these in the Seventh Part of my Spagyrick Pharmacopœa.